Turkiye has slammed Israeli claims that Ankara was arming and funding Palestinian militant group Hamas as “lies”, accusing Israel of trying to direct attention away from its military offensive in Gaza, AFP reports.

The angry rebuttal came after Israel’s Foreign Minister Katz accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of “supplying arms and money to Hamas to kill Israelis”.

In a post on X in Turkish, Katz claimed that the Israeli security services had dismantled “terrorist cells” that were “under directions from Hamas headquarters in Turkey”.

In response, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said that Israel’s top diplomat was “trying to conceal the crimes committed by Israel against the Palestinians behind a series of lies, slander and disrespect”.

“But Israel’s dirty propaganda and psychological pressure aimed at our country and our president will remain ineffective,” the ministry’s statement added.